Advancements in radio communication technologies have permitted the development and deployment of many types of radio communication systems, providing for new types of radio communication services, at lowered costs, and at greater communication throughputs. Increasing numbers of users make regular use of radio communication systems through which to communicate pursuant to performance of many varied communication services, and their use is becoming an increasingly pervasive aspect of every day life.
Exemplary radio communication systems include, for instance, cellular communication systems, WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) systems, and WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) network systems. Each of these exemplary systems provide for radio communications with wireless devices, referred, variously, as mobile stations, mobile nodes, access terminals, etc. The wireless devices regularly are of dimensions and weights permitting of their portability. That is to say, a user need not be positioned at a fixed location at which the wireless device is positioned to permit its use. Rather, the wireless device is typically, readily moveable between different locations to be operated pursuant to performance of communication services at the different locations as well as, also, operated as the wireless device is carried between the different locations. A wireless device must, of course, be constructed to permit its operation to communicate by way of a particular communication system. Operating standards promulgated by standard-setting bodies define, for many such radio communication systems, operational capabilities, procedures, and protocols pursuant to which the wireless devices must conform in order to permit their use pursuant to performance of a communication service.
As successive generations of operating standards proliferate, a wireless device is sometimes constructed to be operable in conformity with multiple communication standards associated with a single radio communication system-type. And with convergence of communication technologies increasingly permits similar, or identical, communication services are increasingly able to be performed by different communication system-types. And, correspondingly, there is demand for wireless devices capable of communicating by way of more than one communication system-type. For instance, a multi-mode device capable of communicating by way of both a cellular communication system network and by way of a WiFi network provides a user with the capability of communicating by way of both a cellular communication system and by way of a WiFi network. Other multi-mode, wireless devices provide a user with the ability to communicate by way of other combinations of communication systems.
Operating procedures and protocols have promulgated, and others are undergoing promulgation, with respect to various aspects of interoperability between different communication systems. Interoperability between systems provides, for instance, procedures related to seamless transfer of communications between the respective communication systems. UMA/GAN (Unlicensed Mobile Access/Generic Access Network) standard promulgations, e.g., provide for seamless roaming operations and communication handovers between 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), cellular based stations and IP (Internet Protocol) networks. IP networks include, for instance, the aforementioned WiFi network systems. While the existing promulgation provides for communication of data frames, an existing promulgation fails to provide for efficient segmentation of data. Such inefficiency reduces the communication efficiency and corresponding communication throughput capabilities during performance of a communication service. In particular, in a UMA/GAN system, layer 3 packets are forwarded over an IP connection using UMA/GAN protocols. As in cellular-system counterparts, application level data is segmented into SNDCP frames, and the SNDCP frames are packaged into LLC frames. An LLC frame is of a maximum size of an N201-U value, specified in the 3GPP operating specification. By default, such value is 500 bytes. And, in a UMA/GAN system, a user-data, LLC frame is packaged into one GA-PSR-UNITDATA frame, and each of such frames is sent over an IP link via a UDP packet. The use of a low N201-U value, e.g., the 500 byte size value, is additionally inefficient as each application layer packet may be segmented into several SNDCP frames. With the addition of multiple levels of packet headers, significant amounts of overhead is required, resulting in communication inefficiencies.
If a manner could be provided by which more efficiently to provide for the communication of the data, such as through use of larger frame-sizes, improved communication efficiencies and throughput would be permitted.
It is in light of this background information related to communication of data in a radio communication system that the significant improvements of the present invention have evolved.